KISS

As a kid, I used to play word jumbles. I was pretty good at it and still have a keen eye for catching an errand, misplaced word or typographical error. However, at times, like many others, my typoglycemic abilities betray my ability to edit my own work. One explanation is that we don't read words a letter at a time but in units. So, when the passage has contextualised and a predictive succession of where it's going, our brain, in a sense, auto-corrects. Sure, it's handy when you might be reading something for understanding's sake, and indeed, when we read our own work, we have that dis/advantage of predictability since we wrote it. 

About a week and a half ago, I was putting together letter boards to help kids learn to spell and texted my new "editor" an image of what I was doing. I never saw it, but they immediately spotted a random word with the letters I was cutting up. They have been a tremendous help in the past month and a half, reading my work, picking up those typoglycemic oversights, and offering suggestions for improving my stories. When I signed up for the Deadline for Writers, I solely expected to be working in a vacuum, as I usually do, but having someone with a keen eye eagerly looking over my writing has been such a luxury. They even inspired me to take on the Poetry challenge on the platform!

Since my mother introduced me to Sarah Selecky's writing class a few years ago, I have found these online forums to be an excellent source of community. Selecky's, one of my favourites, used to run more than once a year, and I always looked forward to the inspiration they provided me for my writing. It's not just the simple visual prompts or word themes but the opportunity to share and have an outside self-accountability that can be an inspiring driving force. As such, I've sought more opportunities to participate in such classes since my in-person writing group drifted apart a few years ago. Time in the day-to-day quickly evaporates, and having a "class" helps carve out that moment to explore our creativity. And, having a fabulous editor is appreciated more than words can say but certainly reflected in the warmth of my smile their way :)

Happy Writing!

O is for October

I have always struggled with poetry, whether reading it or attempting to write it. Inspiration only comes at certain times, and I am far from being good at it. A love letter infused with my flowery writing, a couple of non-human animal-inspired verses (O is for Orangutan from my Alphabeast series pasted below), or an emulation (Cephalopodan Triad) is about as far as I have gone. I have posted a few of my attempts in the past, but I recently began a writing challenge to keep me on track with working on my second novel. Within this platform, they also had 12 months of poetry as one of their challenges, so I’ve decided to take it on. I seem to have started on a good month, as the prompt was to write an acrostic or ekphrasic poem. 

The acrostic has few rules other than to spell out a word with the first letters in each stanza. So, when I came across an old photo of mine from my last trip to Victoria’s Fan Tan Alley, my preferred genre of writing about relationships and most often with a romantic leaning, the photo’s capture of the words Heart’s Content seemed like the perfect way to start this journey. I tried not to ruminate on my imperfections or insecurities and just wrote from the heart. I was eager to submit my poem and have it off my proverbial desk before I lost the courage to show the vulnerability of my writing in a new form. So, I had not shown it to anyone before submitting it. I simply looked forward to the community of writers participating in the challenge, offering their thoughts on my work. I then shared it with someone close to my heart, and they graciously provided some suggested edits that enhanced this somewhat first try of mine. With their keen eye and care, I integrated the new edits that have improved my piece. And with renewed confidence, I'll resubmit this new collaborative version.

I look forward to continuing this shared writing journey. Who knows, I may fall in love with writing poetry too!  

O is for Orangutan

Over time, they die out while

Rivers outline the paths that once were followed…

Always closely linked, yet

Never to return.

Great elders led the way.

Under the forest canopy and limb over limb from

Treetop to treetop.

Swaying from branch to branch…

Always closely linked yet.

Never to return.

Words

I've been thinking a lot about how to start connecting my generations in my second novel. It's turned out to be a more significant project than anticipated, but I often get a bit carried away. While some people deal with writer's block, I've never fully subscribed to that paradigm. It's more about finding the right key to unlock the door. A few years ago, I started using prompts, and they've really helped spark my creativity. There's this one class I love taking whenever it's available, and I just started another one where the prompts are just usually just a single word, which leads to a whole theme. Both these classes incorporate the aspect of a writing community in which you can share your work and read the creations of others, which is simply invaluable. I simply love seeing how a prompt can be interpreted differently. It's also such a great experience to have other writers comment on your work, offer suggestions on how to improve a piece, or even just be those second eyes that pick up on a typo or repetition of words.

So, after a slow Sunday of getting back into writing and trying out different styles, I'm thinking about giving NaNoWriMo another shot this year because that might be what I need to finally finish my novel. Right now, I have the bones of the story; I just need to figure out how to unite all the families. What's tricky with this second book is that it's entirely fictional. I usually write creative nonfiction. So even though we draw on our own experiences to some extent, this story is all made up and encompasses themes of the murder mystery genre. So here's looking ahead to another slow Sunday of bringing together characters and tying up loose ends. Happy Monday!

September Morn Magic

As I felt September step in with a quiet grace akin to the gentle whisper of love—so tender and enchanting—it stirred the very essence of my soul. The delicate fragrances of ripening fruit hanging in the air harmoniously fused with the sweet sprinkling of honey and vanilla notes emanating from the sunflower blooms. I take a moment to gaze up at the changing leaves. It won't be long before they begin their slow pirouettes towards the impending frosted earth. Once their rosy hues have reached the apex of their margins, I will gaze upon the beauty of their final blushing under the midday sun.

I pause, contemplate what truly matters, and appreciate how solace emerges in the quiet moments spent with those who truly see and understand our hearts. I linger in that moment to examine how that love emerges to be able to translate it onto the page. A handful of characters are already cast yet still auditioning for their final performance. In the hush of the early morning hours, they may share a kind word or imagine the softness of their hands brushing ever so lightly as they cross paths. Yet-to-be-made memories echo the truth that they are never truly alone. These dedicated anchors and memories offer refuge amidst the chaos of life, nurturing the delicate connections between hearts.

So, as September reveals its blank canvas before us, let it inspire us to reach out. Let it inspire us to become artists of our worlds and paint vibrant strokes across the doldrums of an ordinary grey autumn day with the sunkissed yellow of the sunshine carried within our smiles. Let us highlight our surroundings with the vermillion warmth of kindness and empathy. Let each conversation be a broad, richly charged brushstroke of crimson heat that warms all that cross our path, and let every moment of laughter be a burst of foliage-inspired colour.

In this month of nature's artistic transformation, may we embrace every heartbeat with gratitude and cherish the magic of kind souls who walk beside us on this journey through life.

Writing Contests and the Conflicted Mind

It is the story of creative turmoil that crafting a story for a contest can unleash. We hope for a rush of inspiration when we think about the thrill of possibilities of the prospect of recognition, and it can tantalise the creative embers to flame. But amidst those smouldering embers, one may fall under the smothering ash of doubt. 

There is the odd time that I will figuratively take pen to paper and weave a tale to satisfy the parameters of a writing contest. Unlike a moth to a flame, I am not as drawn to contest writing. My outlook is less about the promise of perceived validation, and instead, I see these opportunities to hone my talents by working within assigned parameters for a story. While I have had the excitement of seeing my words in print, the element of sharing them is more about how they may resonate with a reader or the collegial atmosphere of working with other writers. Once a month, I get the prompt for the Furious Fiction Challenge, which got me thinking about the role of contest writing in my craft. Last summer, I participated in one of the NYC Midnight contests, and while I did not make it to the final round, it forced me to work outside my comfort zone with tight deadlines in genres I had never written. I liked what I came up with in so little time, and it opened my perspectives on story writing, which is the lens through which I view these opportunities rather than the prospect of “winning.” Ultimately, I think one should look at the writing contest as a journey of inspiration rather than the prospect of accolades or prizes. It’s an opportunity for self-discovery, growth, and perhaps even a transformation of one’s writing. And, on that note, I will submit this month’s Furious Fiction Challenge!

Only Fools...

With one day to myself before I jump back onto the treadmill of life, what better way to spend it than doing something I love? The Easter weekend began with the promise of adventure and inspiration as I played commuter from my little island in the Pacific to be a tourist on the mainland and to explore the familiar through the lens of a visitor.

As I waited for my ferry, I perused the waiting shelf library and picked up a few books to immerse myself during the familiar ride to the mainland. It was a few pages in when a line struck me. Camus' The Plague is undoubtedly not in the same vein as my first novel or the second I am currently working on. However, his comment on how "Men and women consume one another rapidly in what is called "the act of love," or else settle down to a mild habit of conjugality. [And how,] we seldom find a mean between these two extremes" (p.5) made me think deeply about the construction of my current narrative and, perhaps, the absurdity of love. 

Amidst the weekend of confessions, introspective revelations, photographic exposition, and poetry; I was reminded of moments relived through the gaze of salty libations within the Ballyhoo. Straddling time and space within the thread of a story unfolding, I thought of my first novel and how the mirage of epistolary love and navigating relationships, no matter the time, is often a balancing act held together by hope.

As a teenager, the here and now was a more tangible concept. My first novel spoke to the allure of a epistolary relationship as today's space is one where borders are blurred, and distances shrink, almost beckoning an adventurous soul to seek love across oceans and continents. Yet, we forget that beneath the surface of seemingly romantic unions, a delicate web of hope and delusion remains much like the romance of my second novel, which spans three generations and weaves together the tapestry of two families. This web of hope and delusions is a mirage that promises connection but often leaves hearts adrift in a sea of uncertainty despite a generational milieu. It made me think of my characters and how love and longing intertwine the complexities of existence, how they have been bound by fate yet teeter on the precipice of being torn asunder by the march of time. I have played with the chance encounters that led to the serendipity of their love affair, the seeds of doubt, the collision of their worlds, and how those fleeting moments of happiness can quickly be overshadowed by the looming spectre of inevitability, just like the concept of sliding doors and the knowledge that these moments together are but a transient blip in the vast expanse of eternity.

And so I find myself enthralled by that quote from Camus, as it concisely elucidates the consumptive activity of love that my first novel speaks to about lovers becoming adrift in their once-boundless passion and inextricably reduced to nought but memories and impulsive threads. 

It is sometimes hard to live in reverse when writing since this second novel is intragenerational and ends far before the entanglements of the fragile threads of technology and longing. Those late-night conversations blossoming in the digital realm like the cherry trees in spring rife with virtual embraces that bridge the chasm of distance are not something of the past. And, to re-immerse oneself in the whispers of sweet nothings and promises of forever is a space in which the shadow of delusions in the very fabric of love is not easy as it relies on effacing the current reality. Yet, it brings one back to the common thread, hope. 

Hope becomes both the anchor and downfall in both worlds. With the instant gratification of screens replacing embraces and where emojis stand in for kisses, it's easy to lose sight of the tangible realities of love. And so, I am finding myself lost in translating that abstract concept of distance as it was measured, in kilometres and not missed calls or messages left hanging. There is a natural blurring of the lines between reality and fantasy that is less obvious than it is in the clutter of a virtual connection.

So, in that haze, I am rummaging through those delusions to reveal a kernel of truth, a taste of the past unfettered by constructed realities and unearthing the harsh realities of distance and time that can eventually extinguish that passion. I am attuned to reveal the echoes of what could have been, the aftermath of a broken heart, and the balancing act of relationships. It is a delicate dance between hope and delusion, reality and fantasy, and finding solace in the arms of a lover or finding oneself lost in the wilderness of their desires. 

With that, before April is upon us, I will plunge back into submission prep and novel number two.

Numb

Mino 2007-2023

When I had first driven onto the ferry, I’d tried to busy my mind with the pragmatism of deleting calendar events I knew would no longer come to pass. Anything to distract myself from the reality I was driving toward at 4:30 am this dark, wet, and chilly morning in January.  

The ship crashed into the berth and the high-pitched grating squeal of steel colliding and sliding into place cut through the silence. I pulled off the ferry way before dusk that morning; my hands gripped the wheel tight as I drove along the highway. It was still pitch black out and the driving rain made it impossible to spot the slick pools of gathered water on the glassy pavement that pulled my car intermittently off-course along my way in a flash before my tires found their traction and jolted me back into the present moment. I couldn’t linger in the present along my drive, but let my mind drift back to memories of you. The only recollections of the journey are but those flashes when those puddles pulled me off course and the sting of my tears that left a scorching trail of grief on my cheeks are still present. The muffled drone of the pouring rain pounding the roof of my car had me encased in a cold cocoon of numbed sound; my mind is still like a glass lake that mirrored nothing but the image of you.  

I pulled into the parking lot like I had last night, but this time stepped out of the car without you in my arms; I rang the bell. Someone came to the door shortly after and let me in. They then led me into an empty waiting room; a new cocoon before I am then directed to the next soundless chamber; a small empty room where I am numb again but for the sting of my tears. They left me there, waiting for the doctor to come and speak with me. A gentle knock on the door alerts me to her walking in, but I stare through her as she lists off more bad news of your struggle throughout the night and the imminence of our separation. I can feel my heart sink, and the pull now is just to get through all the paperwork so that they will finally take me to you. She leaves again and sends administrators in order to deal with the transactional elements and it’s all a blur.  After I signed the last form, the doctor returned.

“Are you comfortable being there for the procedure?” she asked.

“Yes,” someone in me responds without hesitation.

We walk through the corridors and the bleeps of the ICU cut through my soundless entombment until I see you. You’re lying there hooked up to so many wires and oxygen, but as I draw near to you in the busy hospital unit, it feels like just me you again. I kneel by your side and feel the frailty of you as your heartbeat quickens when my hand meets your chest. The gentle, rhythmic pulse of your heart throbs in the palm of my hand. You waited, I’m told, and as much as the pain constricts my heart to let go, I cannot bear to make you wait any longer. I take a last moment to whisper my love to you and call for the doctor. 

They brought us to a private room, and in your collapsed state in my arms, you feel so small. I’d carried your nearly fifty-pound body up and down the stairs in the last few days when your back legs no longer had the strength to carry the weight of you. But now you feel small, and like a well-loved stuffed bear, you’ve been my security, my confidant, my best friend, for the last 16 years. I hold your languid body and try to comfort you through this passing as much as feeling you close in my arms comforts me. 

They leave me with you in this room. Its silhouetted winter forest scene seems fitting, bringing me back to our beginning at this very last moment with you. The image of the cold, snow-cased house where our journey together began in the Laurentian Mountains fills my mind, and my heart aches. I hold you tighter and remember how you bounced in the snow that was so high it completely buried one side of our house. We sit together, still in that moment, as the warmth of your spirit seeps into me and the warmth of your body seeps from you. I lie you back down on the gurney and hold your leathered paws in my shaking hand as I stroke the velvety fur in the little fold of your ear. I am numb with loss and you are no longer here, but I lean down and kiss you goodbye one last time before I step out of the room.

Walking through the hollow cocoons of waiting rooms, I feel a deep heaviness drape over me until I’m back out in the stinging icy rain that washes away the burn of my tears. I get back into the nest of my car to begin the journey in reverse. My tires cut through more pools of water on the highway and the sudden jolts that pulled the vehicle sideways momentarily break my numbed trance. But as the distance from you in body expands, the space you will forever hold in my heart swells.

I miss you already…

Bring on the New Year

I feel it looming just around the corner... I thought I would have a little time to recuperate from the busy school year, but it appears I just can’t help but keep a steady pace, even on my break. The heavy deadline-ridden workload that is peeking back at me the closer we approach January has me wondering if I have taken on too much. I do, however, have a few little things to look forward to in the coming weeks and months. I hope these markers of inspired hope will ease the turbulence of this impending tornado that is about to touch down in my world. Perhaps these little moments I look toward will at least serve as moments of reprieve, like being in the eye of the storm. 

While I will balance work and academia, I also am super excited that one of my favourite creative writing classes will be offered in the New Year. This class, although being held at the busiest time for me, is one I cannot resist taking part in. I have loved every opportunity I have had to take part and if you fancy taking on writing challenges with a collaborative and inspiring group of writers, I can wholeheartedly recommend Sarah Selecky’s Six Senses. Until then, I’ll enjoy the blasts of wintery weather with my bestie and wish you all the very best to come...

Launch countdown

After a 14hr marathon of writing a twenty-page paper on Bowenian Theory on only 3hrs of sleep, I am once again wearing an academic hat. It feels good to be back crafting the intricate puzzle of a familiar genre. That said, I was equally excited to learn that one of my first pieces of creative nonfiction was selected for publication in a literary zine that has published such international talents as Atwood and one of my favourite poets, Bukowski. Looking forward to the launch party! 

Titles and chapter endings

Eight months, and I am back. The pandemic wreaked on my writing group and usurped my free time with added work. However, once January rolled around, it was the catalyst to get me writing anything new again. Work was ever consuming, and I didn’t have the headspace to get anything out onto paper. I also just took the time yesterday to figure out why my site wouldn’t load. I did a little snooping around and re-stimulating of my brain from my coding days and, voila. Fixed! So here we are again…

I’m over twenty thousand words in and have a thousand words here, ten thousand there, lying about ready to be connected to the story. So it’s about halfway written. I started with a titled prologue and now feel like I have pigeonholed myself. I think the title is something I struggle with the most. Sometimes it’ll just come to me naturally and a few have been fun to name but although my last chapter has a title that suits it I’m not that fond of it… I don’t even know where my chapter will take me this week but I think I am about two chapters away from the main climax of the story so I am looking forward to the big meet between my characters. I also read an article that had me flipping back to each previous chapter to discover a pattern as I had never given much thought to the ending of a chapter rather more than just sensed where a good place to take a breath might be for my reader. That said, the only ending I thought of was the end of my novel, which was one of the first things I wrote… 

Moving Forward

It was a slow month, and I fell off the wagon a few times with some sluggish days. My thoughts have been like ants scurrying from a flooded anthill. But I still had one of my strongest days, thanks to my competitive perseverance and my buddy’s taunts. Although I may not have progressed as far as I would have wanted; amidst all the turmoil, I still clocked 384.12kms, which is like running from my seaside home to the crystal aquamarine waters of the Rockies. I have gained a little more clarity in the last two days, and so I will continue forward rebuilding to maintain my head above water. 

Until then, stay safe, stay kind ♥️.

Heart of Stone

The Big Bad Wolf has nothing on Rolf Lovett, the antihero in my story. It’s been a challenge to write amidst the uncertainty of my world. I forced myself to put my hands to the keyboard to complete my short story for a contest closing tonight. And so, I thought I’d take this fleeting inspiration to add a few words here since I have somewhat fallen off the blog earth since February. Disillusionment and rose-coloured glasses were to blame for my abscondment. I am proud to maintain a perhaps naïve vision of the kindness I see in others. The problem is, that with that, the reality of malevolence in someone often knocks the wind out of my sails.

But, as the old saying goes, bad luck happens in threes. So, what started with hopeful poor judgement and subsequent twofold hardships are perhaps a signal that my misfortune has come full circle. If my story is any kind of hopeful beacon, threes have a way of overcoming the wolf.

Zebrafish

We take an unknown leap when we fall in love; trusting the care of our heart to another person.

This month I had the prompt to write a love story from my online writing group. The assignment was to choose one of the 6 senses: touch, sight, smell, sound, taste, or magic. We had to write about a character whose sense we chose is heightened or diminished. We needed to explore how their distorted sense affects them or those around them? And we could make it a love story... This was well within my wheelhouse since love and relationship stories are my passion. I also decided that I wanted to play on the current themes of how people meet that differs from when I was growing up.

I concentrated on sound since it is a sense that I don’t appreciate in the context of love or give a tremendous amount of thought to, but it is something that I imagine could confuse someone's feelings. I remember as a child I went to camp and had a tremendous crush on a counsellor whose speech was dysarthric or apraxic. It made me wonder how a love story incorporating that auditory dissonance in contemporary times might play out. 

“His voice was distinctively him, my Zebrafish. The absence of the alveolar trill of the dropped Rs in my name, and his soft sweet drawl pulled the corners of my mouth into a smile.”

There were so many threads that came together to weave this story of mine, and it took a lot to imagine the reality of my character. Not to mention, speech can be difficult to describe. But, I wanted to give myself a challenge. So I donned my academic hat and dove deep into the research of learning a new glossary of terms. In our day and age of texting and digital culture, I thought to explore the auditory experience of a relationship in the context of our current modalities of communication would make for an interesting love story.

I'd been doing some edits on my novel and took a break to work on my monthly writing group assignment. I was feeling like I wanted to give my novel’s protagonist some sort of hope. My novel ends dismally and so this little piece also felt like it could be an epilogue of sorts for my own peace of mind... I doubt I have more to say about the short story to actually make it a sequel to my novel.

“… delighting my tympanic membrane like a gentle caress that would linger along its journey deep within me… his words would bounce around inside me until they’d find their final resting place in the warming of my heart.”

One of my writing group members mentioned the dissociation we sometimes have when meeting a radio personality in person. All these little threads came together to craft Zebrafish; a story about a broken-hearted girl who finds love and learns to trust again despite all these auditory obstacles. 

My short was very well-received and I am always humbled by the compliments on my prose. However, so far the male love interest in my novel, let's call him Joe, is not well-liked. I have woven my female protagonist into a few stories outside the novel and her other male counterparts are always better received than Joe. I am going to have to start sharing some of the wooing passages to get my readers to fall in love with Joe just as they have fallen in love with my Zebrafish. 

Perhaps, I took a leap with Joe and was blinded by love myself...